


Ghost Nights

by GhostGreenSigns



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 20:22:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7402540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostGreenSigns/pseuds/GhostGreenSigns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex feels like a ghost sometimes. Luckily, she knows just the person to remind her that ghosts aren't real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost Nights

Alex stands in front of the door, hair damp from the rain that assaulted her before she had the sense to pull the hood up on her jacket. She has a clear moment of realization right before the door swings open.

“Oh my God.” She groans into her hands.

“Alex?”

“This is so unprofessional.”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m going to die.”

“You aren’t going to die.”

“I am.”

“Ok, you are.”

She looks up and blinks into the light that’s flooded the porch of Dr. Strand’s house. 

He shrugs. “You will, eventually. Sooner perhaps if you catch pneumonia.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Please, come in.”

She follows him into his-his father’s house. “Please tell me I didn’t wake you.” She begs.

“You didn’t. I, uh, was having a difficult time sleeping.”

Files are strewn across the kitchen table and his laptop hums, close to overheating. 

“Tea?” He asks as she skims the papers in front of her.

“Yes, please.”

“Would you mind taking your boots off? It’s just the water isn’t good for the wood.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.” She says, yanking her boots off and sitting them by the door. She hangs her jacket next to one of his, a navy peacoat, very Strand-like. She grins at it.  
Alex hears him sit the tea on the table and that’s when she notices his clothes. 

“Holy shit.”

“Alex?”

He looks startled.

“You’re wearing sweat pants.”

He huffs out a laugh. “You’re tea is getting cold.”

“You own sweat pants.”

“I own a snuggie as well.”

“You’re going to kill me. Stop, please.”

He laughs, a full out honest to God laugh and Alex is so pleased with herself that she swells with the sound of it. 

“Ruby got it for me as a joke.”

Alex sits next to him, wrapping her hands around the mug and pulling her knees up to her chest.

“What has you up at this hour?” She asks, peering at his computer screen. 

“I can’t seem to turn my mind off.”

“Birds of a feather.”

He smiles. “I found a cell phone plan that was, at one point, in Lisa Graves name. Lake Tahoe Lisa Graves, that is.”

“Oh.”

“It hasn’t been used in a few years but there was an address listed and it was everything I could do not to call you up and tell you to be ready to go when I got there.”

She can’t think of anything to say at first. Alex can tell that he’s watching her from the corner of his eye. She takes a sip of too-hot tea to buy time.

“You wouldn’t want me there for that.”

“Why not?” He seems genuinely confused. “It may be the only mystery I can give you the pleasure of listing as solved.”

She laughs. “It’s just, three isn’t a good number for a reunion.”

“Hmm.” 

“But, I do reserve the right to interview Coralee if you ever do find her.”

“I think I would want you there.”

“Oh?”

“I know you. I’m not sure that I know Coralee any longer.”

“Of course you know her, Richard. She’s your wife.”

“Is she? Legally a person is declared dead after seven years and for that matter, common law…anything is seven years. I don’t know how she likes her coffee anymore, or if she still wears the same perfume. I don’t know if she’s cut her hair short or if she’s no longer a morning person.”

Alex thinks about this.

She knows how Richard takes his tea, a splash of milk, no sugar or honey. She knows that he’s a morning person in the sense that he wakes up early but that he enjoys spending his first few hours in a solitary state. He’s also a night owl. She knows that he wears something that smells vaguely spicy and never seems to apply a lot of it. It drifts about his clothes like smoke. 

“She’s more a ghost than a person.” He says, closing his laptop.

“Ghosts aren’t real.”

He grins at her and she takes a minute to feel proud of herself again. He could smile more often. It would make him look better rested even if he wasn’t. His white t-shirt and sweatpants don’t seem so out of place with that smile. 

“That’s what I call nights like these though.” She offers. “Ghost nights. During the day I can drink endless mugs of coffee. I’m busy enough that often, my sleep deprivation doesn’t hit me until I have a second to sit down. It’s the nights that are getting to me. I wander around my apartment, talking to myself, reorganizing books or things in the pantry. There is no validation that I’m not a ghost at night. I feel like one.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

“Yeah, though, this was poorly thought out.” She adds. “And I am sorry.”

“Don’t be. As I’ve said, I thought about calling you and coercing you into some sort of masochistic road trip.”

He seems to move closer to her but she can’t tell how. 

“You can talk to me, on ghost nights.”

“What, just call you up and ask you to confirm my existence?”

“Why not?”

“Richard.”

“It’s my job, after all, disproving ghosts.”

Alex laughs in a way that bubbles up from someplace warm in her chest and won’t stop. She lays her head on the table and lets it overtake her until it’s indistinguishable from tears. Dr. Strand lays a hand on her back, slowly moving his thumb back and forth over a vertebrae. 

Alex straightens back up gradually, wiping her eyes and smiling so hard her cheeks hurt.

“Dr. Strand, if you can’t disprove that I’m a ghost, you own me a million dollars.”

“Is that so?”

“I don’t make the rules.”

His hand moves from its place on her shoulder to the side of her face, running his thumb along the top of her cheek before kissing her. Alex sighs into it, moving closer, absorbing the warmth of this casual version of her very own Dr. Richard Strand. She runs her hands up his arms, musses his hair with her fingertips. He tastes like too-strong tea and she thinks that this is exactly what being real feels like.

He pulls away, just enough to look at her. 

“You, Alex, are no ghost.”

“And how do you know that?”

“You can’t kiss a ghost.”

**Author's Note:**

> So hi, this is my first time writing for this fandom. Comments will make me write more, as will really any interaction these two have in the show.


End file.
